Leonardo Da Vinci, A Renaissance Man

Leonardo created so many new things that the Renaissance is known for at this time. He invented, wrote and painted in different ways anybody had ever done. He risked mirror writing and being and staying a left handed. After his apprentinceship, he refused the Adoration of the Magi and went straight to Milan to work for the Duke. There he helped the army, the city, the painters, the sculptors and the style to be his way and even more beautiful than before in the Renaissance, making him the Ultimate Renaissance Man.

Brunelleschi's Dome

Looking at Brunelleschi’s past and his achievements, I think he had a lot of courage. When he went to present his idea of the dome, he had to stand up to a lot of very important people. He was disapproved, everybody thought he was absolutely nuts. He was scared and embarrassed after his presentation, so he stayed home for a few days. He thought of a better idea to represent his idea, maybe even without words. He showed his idea with an egg; an egg has a dome shaped top. He asked the gentlemen (there were no women) to balance the egg on its bottom. Everybody failed, and Brunelleschi showed his idea, slamming the egg slightly on the table. He balanced it properly without allowing it to fall. The gentlemen were flattered and jealous, Brunelleschi’s idea had worked. I think this showed a lot of courage of him. Even though he was disapproved, he came back with another idea and was not afraid. To me this showed how he found the idea of the dome and also his allowance to be the one to build it.

Funky Ideas

A lot of times new ideas come from peers or siblings, but most of the time really it comes form your imagination and the way you think. Sometimes new ideas come from past experiences and memories. So the quote that concludes this, is that scientis have proven ideas simply form in the brain: "All ideas come from the brain, whether it was formed in the head or said to the person.

My Favorite Short Story From the Unit

During the unit of short stories, we read three short stories: The Sniper, Lamb to the Slaughter, and Thank You, Ma'am. When I had to chose a favorite I decided to choose the one that had an interesting plot, and different ideas through out the story, which I thought was Thank You Ma'am. The author of this short story was Langston Hughes, reading his story, I thought that the things that happened in the story happened to him as a young boy. It excited me by the action in the beginning and the continuous suprises. I enjoyed this unit a lot!

Love can be shared, but never bought.

Discovering what I believe in was easy. But expressing it in a good way so that people will understand what I mean was not as easy. I practiced, wrote drafts and talked to my parents about it. Finally, I got a few interesting ways to express myself.

Almost every morning, I walk into my grade’s deck. I say: “good morning” and “hello” to people and wait for a response. One day people don’t respond and look at me as if I’m crazy, and I feel rejected. But when the next morning I ask the same person again, they smile and happily respond with a rather long answer. Every time this happens, I think to myself: “that’s weird…”

That’s why I think sometimes people are rather harsh, and sometimes the same people are friendly and very nice. I think this shows mood-swings, but also love that emerges from people, which sometimes may take time. It shows kindness and respect to another even though we are just children in the seventh grade.

At school, we have house t-shirts, and on the back of those it says a few important words which I like to relate this piece of writing to. The words are: honesty, kindness, responsibility and respect.

I believe that love exists in everybody. Some people may not see it or notice it yet, but everybody has it in them since they were born as a baby. That’s why I believe in the life-style of animals, in fairness, honesty, kindness, responsibility and respect. I even sometimes believe in myself. Having talked to my parents, they say I should believe in myself a lot more.

Whatever you believe in, I know that it is ok, and I hope everybody does and that it‘s fine to share your feelings and thoughts. That is why I share what I believe in with my heart and with pride, and especially my love.

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Battle for the English Throne

The game we I played as a class in my 7th grade Humanities class, was educational. It is a game where you can choose what you want to select (multiple choice). When you click the right answer you have another ch0ice of two selections. Everytime you pick an answer, something would happen. What I enjoyed about the game were the reactions of the voices, especially the foot-soldiers. I learned what were the consequences when you picked the wrong answer. The Battle of Hastings (where the game was based on), occured in Hastings in the south of England in 1066. William Duke of Normandy, attacked from the south after a ruthless battle in the North. Harold Godwinson (English) arrived at night where they attacked immeadatly when the Normans were still sleeping, killing hundreds. The English set up a shield wall just on top of the hill of Hastings, that is how they dominated the battle. After a number of fake retreats and side and back attacks by William, Harold falls, and William wins and becomes King of Enlgand. I think this is a good learning experience because for kids playing a game as homework motivates them, and it was another way of sending the knowledge to the kids in my class.

The Life of a Teenage Girl

In the Historical Fiction Novel: Catherine Called Birdy written by Karen Cushman, Catherine the main character leads a complicated and extremely frustrating life of a teenage girl. The story is led without gender equality, with the lack of freedom and the power of the church, which takes place in the Medieval Britain. Girls and women meant absolutely nothing in those times; they were ignored and only used for the boring and hard work of life. Men had the power over everything; they would decide what people were going to do, instead of people deciding for themselves. Since Catherine is a girl, she was nothing, the only thing that made her more important was that she was the daughter of a country knight, who had a village and a dozen servants. She had no freedom, since she had to learn how to be a lady and learn how to do the hard and boring work. In Medieval time, the Church was more important and more powerful that now. Every day there was a day for a particular saint which was different every day. It would be celebrated if it was your own saint’s day. Girls had a hard time staying happy in the days where men were in power, where freedom was only to men, and where the Church changed everybody’s lives.

The Black Void

I called this story the black void because there were a lot of relationships with the color black, and this void was totally endless. I expected that the person with the black dot would leave the community to keep it simple and small. Because the lottery gave me a feeling of that it wasn’t nice, it made me think that people would leave the “village”. I really wanted to know how this cruel thing was going to end, but I also didn’t want to read it because I expected it to be ugly. I totally followed the instructions because I opened it the day afterwards. I hoped not to get the black dot because in the story it was a bad thing so I thought it would be bad in our world too.

After all the tension with the black box the lottery itself came and the box was the most important thing in the story for a while and the tension created by the pieces of paper made this very scary and un-expecting. When I read the end of the story I was very thrilled and thought it was a totally mad story when I did like it in the beginning. My predictions weren’t correct, but were pretty close so I felt proud for coming pretty close. If the author would have described more about the stones it would have easily made sense in very less seconds.

Leaving a void in this story created our tension and questioning after a while, because it totally didn’t make sense with so many voids cramped up together, which made a big void, and made it pretty weird.

This big void created a lot of power, which made us all question and want to keep on knowing something, which creates frustration and when frustration is created it is a lot of power I may say.

Shmuel's Point of View (Introduction to the book: The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas

"He...Hell...Hello", I hesitated. "Hello", said the chubby boy approaching the wired fence I sat next to. "What's your name", he asked. "Shmuel", I answered, shyly. Still wishing I could shake his hand like real gentlemen,, like my papa would say. "What is yours?". "Bruno", the boy said loudly. (I personally thought he was a bit too loud.). "I've never heard anyone named Shmuel before", he chuckled. "And I have never heard anyone named Bruno before!" I said disgusted and slightly angry, because I thought my name was absolutely normal. "I am an explorer," Bruno said proudly. I thought he was way too young to be an explorer, but thought that's probably what he would like to become when he grew up. If he grew up.

Looking Beneath the Surface

World famous photographer, Steve McCurry, was born in Philadelphia in 1950. In 1987 he started freelancing as a photojournalist. Some may say that his most thrilling photo, the most famous worldwide image, is the Afghan Girl with the glowing green eyes. Steven McCurry’s images represent humanity. Some of his subjects are sometimes taken in harsh circumstances, for example poverty and war, or the cruel corruption that rules their country. Steve McCurry says “…the pictures I shot back in 1980 are still as vibrant and as wonderful today as when I shot them.” This proves that he feels the pain and sadness of whom or what he captures, and shows his great skill of how he thinks about the world.

To me, the conflicts that cause the sadness is shown in this image, because of that one man who walks there, which emphasizes the loneliness to me. I think the background is less obvious, but still very important, because of the nothingness that flows in those mountains. To me it means how this man is walking away into the void. I think McCurry made me feel this way because of the man. My eye was immediately drawn towards the alley line in the middle. After a while of looking at the alley, I understood that this meant to be a big scar going across the land, which emphasizes the pain that this country has suffered.

I have learnt that photography has more than one meaning, and that there could be a story to a photograph. I think McCurry’s work reflects a great journey because he goes around the world and photographs the culture and the people of a country, which shows how he moves around in places and finds the best places to make pictures of. I think McCurry’s photographs also reflect the importance of a country.

1. The stages before the Final Solution are: Stage 1 classification, when people find who is Jewish, Gypsy, etc. Stage 2 is symbolization when the Nazi’s mark the victims. Stage 3 is dehumanization when the Nazi’s murder specific groups. Stage 4: organization is when they attack the homes. Stage 5 is polarization when they separate people. Stage 6 is preparation, when they mass murdered everyone with gas.

2. I see people looking at the wired fence, and they want to leave the ghetto. I feel like I want to help the people inside there, and from looking at the picture from my picture, it looks like you could just climb over.

3. Jews were treated like they were nothing, not a human, and the Nazi’s thought of the Jews this way because the Jews work very hard and always try to reach their goals. The Nazi’s think they took their jobs because the Jews work hard for it.

4. I don’t know the answer to this question.

5. They used it because it was easier.

6. To me those clothes being stuffed in the chamber mean all the dead people being stuffed away so they can’t be found.

7. 9 million and more unknown died in Auschwitz, not only in the gas chamber, but also when the Jews were starved to death, and when they had to work.

8. I don’t know the answer to this question.

9. I cannot describe anything because I don’t see any good evidence from this picture I am supposed to look at.

10. No this won’t happen again, and as I said already: “Jews were treated like they were nothing, not a human, and the Nazi’s thought of the Jews this way because the Jews work very hard and always try to reach their goals. The Nazi’s think they took their jobs because the Jews work hard for it.”

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World War 2 Webquest

1. Go to dictatorship of the Third Reich, and look at the picture. What do you see about Adolf Hitler, how does he feel and why?
2. Read the third paragraph. Why do you think Hitler needed to be so powerful? Write how he would rise to this power, and what he would do with this power?
3. Go to concentration camps and look at the picture. How do you think the Nazi’s made the concentration camps? Give details.
4. Go to World War 2 and look at the picture. How would the people who survived these attacks feel? Describe.
5. Look at the PowerPoint. What do you think about it? Describe.
6. Read Murder of the Disabled, and Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Why do you think the Nazi’s wanted to have a “pure” race? Describe which races were persecuted in this whole idea.
7. Go to and read mobile killing squads. What is a mobile killing squad?
8. Go to killing centers. What is a killing center?
9. Go to and read Rescue. When was the war over?
10. Go to liberation and look at the picture. Describe what you think those children are feeling. Give 3 things that they might worry about.

Band-Void-Assignment

The International School of Kuala Lumpur provides an exceptional education that challenges each student to develop the attitudes, skills, knowledge and understanding to become a (silence) highly successful, spirited, socially responsible global citizen.

I think putting the “SILENCE” where I put it is the best place to put it to create tension. I think of it this way because people will not know what the children will become, so they start questioning and are curious what their child will become.